Mayor Zohran Mamdani will announce on Monday the rebranding of the NYPD’s controversial Strategic Response Group as he faces pressure from his lefty allies to ban the elite tactical unit.
Mamdani promised to get rid of the SRG during his mayoral campaign after activists for years complained about the way in which the unit handled protests.
Hizzoner is slated to say he’s “decoupled” the 500-strong police unit’s duties of responding to demonstrations from its counterterrorism tasks, insiders briefed on the plans told The Post.
The hastily cooked-up ploy is meant to appease the far-left wing of his party — which has recently loudly advocated for Mamdani to make good on his campaign promise to disband the SRG, sources said.
Mamdani will pitch the move as a “massive overhaul” of how the city deals with First Amendment-protected gatherings in the city — but insiders claimed the announcement would have little-to-no effect on the ground.
Sources described it as more of a revamp in which the SRG will continue operating under a different name, and still respond to active shooters and other potential mass casualty or terrorism-related events.
“This is not a disband, this a rebrand,” said one city official.
One of the only substantive changes put forward by the administration will be the addition of a slate of civilian workers who will work under the Mayor’s Office of Community Safety, which currently only has two employees.
The workers, who have yet to be hired or trained, will respond to protests to attempt to de-escalate alongside officers in the NYPD’s Community Affairs Bureau, which already responds to the overwhelming majority of demonstrations.
“That is like at least a year out,” one source predicted.
The civilians will not respond to protests without armed officers, according to the insiders.
If protests turn violent, additional officers could be called in to make arrests, but it wasn’t immediately clear from which units.
The SRG historically has responded to demonstrations when they turn violent and can only be deployed with the sign off of the mayor. It has only handled such events fewer than 20 times this year and made around a dozen arrests.
Mamdani additionally plans to announce a ban on kettling — a police tactic to encircle protesters, which became controversial during the 2020 George Floyd protests — and tear gas.
Both are already being banned in the patrol guide.
The attempt at a splashy move comes after his comrade, congresswoman-elect Darializa Avila Chevalier, attacked the Mamdani administration over the handling of a protest after ICE agents shot a Dominican migrant in the city.
She pushed for the SRG to be disbanded, setting off a firestorm among fellow Democratic Socialists of America members, who joined the calls.
Mamdani campaigned on the pledge but after taking office, the complicated process was not prioritized.
He put the project on the “back burner,” and then scrambled to come up with a response to the backlash, The Post reported last week.
The announcement is not expected to be an executive order, sources said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
